It mostly means I'm presently out of passionfruit syrup so I couldn't do a Kelbo's version, and I didn't feel like going heavy gin so I passed on a Steve Crane Luau version. The TV Tiki Party Scorpion recipe is always fun to revisit, though I double the orgeat to tame the lemon-heavy published recipe.

I think I have seen Scorpion variants with wine or aromatized/fortified wine but I've never made one. I go back and forth as to whether I prefer it with or without gin as it somehow seems to take over this cocktail. In stark contrast to so many cocktails where the gin plays so nice with the other ingredients.

Drinking right now. . . Tambu Lounge Backscratcher, recipe courtesy of Hurricane Hayward's most recent Atomic Blog post. Used Bulleit as the bourbon float and it gives a nice little edge to this one.

On 2013-08-01 19:58, thePorpoise wrote:the wine is the component i almost never have on hand (champagne works especially well). i've made it without gin and its not the same. the gin is key.

you must use a helluva spicy gin for it to overpower the other 88% of the components!

Not necessarily spicy gins (Ransom Old Tom is probably the only one I have that I might think of as spicy, but even that is more vegetal-botanical than spicy), but the more juniper-angry ones that really clash. Something softer like Haymans or Plymouth would be what I'd reach for here, but even then for me I don't think the gin plays as well as the brandy does with the rest of this particular drink.

I'm actually a big gin fan, but in a Scorpion I just haven't really found the harmony that Is typical of so many other great gin cocktails. I'll keep playing and might hit all the right notes eventually.
_________________"If you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel."
Robert Louis Stevenson

Last night (after a Navy Grog) I continued going through the Tiki+ app:

Jaguar - I had a small bottle of cava to sub for champagne, so I experimented. Interesting if a lot of work!

Dons Special Daiquiri - I served it low ball with crushed ice. Perhaps the best use of passionfruit I have found to date. Ill definitely make it again, maybe for me, probably for the girlfriend because she liked it!